Giving You The Tools To Change The World (Stress For News)

Hi there,

My name is Bradley Marcus,

And I'm a Buddhist practitioner and teacher on TikTok,

As well as a meditation teacher here on Insight Timer.

The world we're living in right now is a very unique place.

We turn on the TV and we see pain and suffering of people in our country,

And even more so people not in our country,

Living in other parts of the world,

Going through terrible,

Terrible experiences.

And if you're from a privileged country like America,

You can feel a bit helpless.

And you can feel a bit odd,

Because you see something like this,

And then you have to go and pick up the kids from school,

And cook yourself dinner,

Go to work.

And because of this contrast,

We can feel a bit jarred,

A bit lost.

How can my world continue on while someone else's is falling into pieces?

And so I wanted to make this meditation today to do a few things.

First,

To calm your mind,

To give you a state of peace,

And build a calm and collected mind.

And then furthermore from there,

Build self-love and self-compassion.

And what this is going to do is give you the strength and foundation to help others more effectively.

So if you feel like you want to do some charity work,

Or you want to call your congressperson,

You're going to be able to do this calm and collected,

As well as with love and compassion.

And this will make our efforts much more effective.

You can return to this meditation at any time to continue to build that peace,

And build that love and compassion for ourselves,

As well as others.

Because as we build more self-love and compassion,

Compassion begins to radiate from within us.

So let's begin.

I want you to just arrive to this present moment.

We're going to arrive home.

Start accepting all sensations that appear.

Feeling the cushion or chair underneath your butt.

Feeling your feet touch the ground.

Feeling the air enclose on your skin.

Smelling the room.

Hearing a car drive outside.

Any sensation.

Even seeing the darkness under your eyes and your eyelids.

Just accept them.

We're arriving to our present moment.

We're being here.

Any worries,

Any thoughts that we may have are melting away.

If you're having trouble stopping those worries from entering your mind,

You can bundle them up,

Put them in a little treasure chest,

And bury that treasure chest.

You're going to come back to it later,

But right now,

You need to put them away,

Because we're arriving home.

Every time a thought may appear,

You can just put it away.

We are constantly arriving in this meditation.

Constantly arriving home.

Constantly arriving to the present moment.

This is our home.

This is our natural state of being.

If we ever get lost,

We can always come home.

We can always come to this state.

Now bring your attention to your nostrils,

Please.

Breathing in and out through the nose during this entire meditation,

We're able to feel micro-sensations in our nostrils,

And I want you to just observe your breath.

We're not controlling our breath.

We're not controlling our thoughts.

We're just observing our breath.

Is our breath quick?

Is it long?

Is it short?

Is it slow?

Is it fast?

How about the spaces in between the breaths?

What are those like?

Take a moment to observe those right now.

This breath is always with us.

One of my teachers told me that our breath is our oldest friend.

It's there when we are born,

And it comes with us when we die.

So feel that breath.

Feel your oldest friend now.

Breathing in and out through the nose,

Just observing and accepting our breath,

However it is.

Now I'd like you to bring your attention to the top of your head.

We're going to do a body scan to relax all of our muscles and get us even into a deeper state.

And as we go from the top to bottom,

You will find more and more relaxation will overcome you.

We will be going into a deeper and deeper state of meditation now.

So bring your attention to the top of your head,

And imagine a ball of white light,

If you would like,

Touching the top of your head.

Now the ball begins to open into a ring and slowly starts to move down our skull,

Down to our forehead and the back of our head and the sides,

Now to the eyebrows and the eyes,

And the tips of the ears,

To the nose,

The back of the head,

The upper lip,

The bottom of the ears and the earlobes,

The mouth,

To the jaw,

The jaw muscles,

All being relaxed as this white beam,

This white ring is scanning our body.

Now to the chin,

To the neck,

To the mid-neck,

Now to the bottom of the neck.

Pause here.

You feel anywhere on your skull,

Your face,

That is not relaxed.

Try to relax it now by just letting go,

Letting go.

If a thought arises during our meditation,

That's okay.

Just observe it.

We are not here to control our thoughts.

I often remind myself that meditating properly is not trying.

Meditating properly is letting go and just observing.

Now let's move that ring to both of our shoulders at the same time,

Both of our arms.

The ring is going around both arms now,

Biceps and triceps to the elbows,

Now down the forearm,

Now to the wrist and to each hand,

Just going to cross over our thumb,

Pointer finger,

Middle finger,

Ring finger,

Pinky,

Now the hand,

Of course,

If you haven't gotten the palm,

Let that ring go over that,

And now let's move to the chest.

Top of the chest and top of the back,

That ring is going down our torso now,

To the middle of our torso,

Front and back,

This ring is moving and relaxing,

And now our ring is moving to our belly and our lower back and to our hips.

Now take a moment and just feel your entire torso relaxing,

Your arms and your shoulders relaxing.

And now let's move this ring down to the buttocks,

Each thigh it's continuing to relax as it scans the thigh of each side,

To the knees,

Calves,

Ankles and the feet,

And see if you can feel each toe,

Pinky,

Ring,

Middle,

Pointer and big toe.

If you've done the meditation and followed the instructions,

You should be in a very calm state of mind right now.

If not,

That's okay.

The main point here is not to judge ourselves for our performance.

Meditation is about just observing,

There is no judgment,

It doesn't even exist,

It's something that we create.

Now I want you to take a moment for gratitude.

Think of something in your life that you are grateful for.

If you can't think of anything,

I'll give you one right now,

Your breathing.

This breath right here.

You woke up today,

That's another thing to be grateful for.

If you can walk,

Feed yourself,

Breathe clean air,

Have clean water,

These are things that not many people,

Excuse me,

Not all people have.

So taking a moment to realize that humbles us and puts things into perspective.

If you're listening on this app,

There's a chance that you have a very nice life in comparison to some people in the world,

And you have a very nice experience today compared to some people,

What they're experiencing in their lives today.

Again,

This is not to make us feel bad or feel that we're doing anything wrong.

This is simply for us to provide gratitude,

To acknowledge,

And what this gratitude is going to do is humble us,

Give us perspective,

And give us the ability to help others,

To help those who may not have these amazing things in their lives.

And it's important to do this with self-compassion and self-love,

Because as I mentioned earlier,

This will be a foundation that we can use to help others.

Because if you don't have a foundation and you're trying to reach and help somebody,

What are they going to stand on when you bring them over?

Or rather,

How are you going to help them and stay helping them without burning yourself out,

Without constantly frantically trying to build a foundation as you're trying to help somebody?

It's almost like you're trying to build a boat as you're trying to bring people on the boat.

So,

We're going to build that boat now.

I want you now to think about one thing that you love about yourself.

This might be hard for some people,

So it doesn't have to be anything extravagant.

It can be,

I really like the shoes that I wore today.

It can be,

I really like that I called my mother yesterday,

Or I really like that I smiled at a random person down the street,

Or I had a conversation with the barista and made an effort to talk with him.

So whatever it is,

I want you to focus on the feeling,

The feeling of whatever it was that made you love yourself.

And if loving yourself is too big of a word,

I understand.

Like yourself,

Something that you enjoyed about yourself,

I want you to focus on that feeling.

And what we're going to do is we're going to implant this feeling into our subconscious using Rick Hansen's HEAL method.

We're going to have the experience,

We're going to enrich it,

And then we're going to allow it into our psyche.

And this will build a new positive neural network and start building that self-love,

Self-compassion so we can help others.

So have that feeling,

Find that feeling,

And now I want you to imagine there's a volume knob and you're going to turn that feeling up.

You're going to turn that volume knob.

The feeling is going to become more enriched,

More vibrant,

High definition.

Remember,

We're not focusing on the thing,

Just the feeling.

Not the thought,

Just the feeling.

Enrich it,

Enrich it,

Turn that volume knob up.

And now I want you to allow it into your psyche.

Feel that feeling sink into your being.

That is how you build a positive neural network.

It is now within you.

And now when you go about your daily life,

You have another ounce of self-love within you.

This is a practice.

Understand that this is a practice.

Some people are better at it than others.

That's okay.

That didn't stop you from learning to ride a bike,

Did it?

That didn't stop you from learning how to speak,

Did it?

So have some self-love,

Self-compassion for yourself,

Even in knowing that this may be a bit difficult for you right now.

And if it's not,

Then that's fantastic.

I just want everyone to hold some self-love and compassion during this practice.

It feels good.

Now before we end this meditation,

I have one more exercise I'd like to do.

You don't have to join in with me if you don't want to,

That's fine.

But we're actually going to say the words,

I love myself,

Out loud.

If you can't do that,

You can say,

I like myself.

And we're going to do it three times,

And each time it's going to get stronger and stronger,

This sensation of self-love.

Think back to that thought earlier if you are lost,

If you can't remember that feeling.

And what this is going to do is really implant this meditation into our subconscious even further.

So we can begin to love ourselves,

Hold compassion for ourselves,

And hold compassion for others in our daily life,

Giving us the strength and aptitude to help those people without being overwhelmed in the chaotic world that we live in.

So let's build this foundation,

Shall we?

On the count of three,

I want you to say,

I love myself.

And I want you to say it with conviction,

Alright?

One,

Two,

Three.

I love myself.

Think back to something that you love about yourself right now.

It could be something new this time,

Something you said,

Something you do regularly.

On the count of three,

Ready?

Even more so this time.

One,

Two,

Three.

I love myself.

We're going to do it one more time.

If you're having trouble,

That's okay.

Imagine love that you have for someone else,

Okay?

Think about a friend that you love,

But now imagine that friend being you,

Alright?

You can see yourself in three dimensions,

Standing there,

And you just are so happy.

Love that person.

On the count of three,

One more time,

Even more so.

One,

Two,

Three.

I love myself.

It's beautiful.

Congratulations.

You are building self-love,

And in doing so you are going to help change the world.

I love you,

And I'm sending you much metta today,

And I hope this meditation found you well.

Thank you very much for joining me on this,

And thank you for staying with me the entire time.

May you be well.